THE ALBANIAN PUBLIC'S TRUST IN SECURITY: STUMBLING BLOCKS TO EU NEGOTIATIONS States have adopted the negotiating frameworks, the rotating Presidency of the Council of the European Union will present the agreed General EU Position in the first intergovernmental conference with each country, marking the formal start of the accession negotiations 28 German Chancellor Merkel listed the German EU Council Presidency's three priorities, on 8 July 2020 before the European Parliament the first of which concerning enlargement, she stated that" During our presidency, we should do everything we can to make progress in three other foreign policy areas; Firstly, at the accession conference, at least with North Macedonia, possibly also Albania – an important step on the way to giving the countries of the Western Balkans an accession perspective.” 29 In that framework, the time period to start negotiations with Albania will be subject to the final decision which will be taken at one of two EU Summits(Council of European Union) at the end of the year, either the EU Summit of 15-16 October 2020 or the EU Summit 10-11 December 2020. 3. Mapping the steps to negotiate Chapter 23& 24: New negotiation approaches and the difficulties ahead Albania has finished the pre-screening process for 35 EU acquis chapters through 35 bilateral meetings which were held in both Tirana and Brussels(from 27 September 2018 to 05 December 2019) between Albanian and EU Commission authorities. These included Chapter 23 : Judiciary and fundamental rights(27-28 June 2019) and Chapter 24 : Justice, freedom, and security(12-15 November 2018). In short, benchmarks are supposed to translate the EU's rhetorical commitment and insistence on"fundamental" issues(among which is the rule of law), enshrined in its strategic documents on enlargement policy, into realities on the ground. It should be noted, that Albania is also going to face the implementation of a new enlargement methodology ­proposed by the EU Commission upon the request of France in February 2020- during the negotiation process for Chapters 23& 24 28 EU Commission European Commission presents to the Council draft negotiating frameworks for Albania and North Macedonia 2020: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_20_1021 ­29 Chancellor Angela Merkel presents German Presidency priorities to the European Parliament 2020: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20200706IPR82712/angela-merkel-presents-german­presidency-priorities-to-the-european-parliament 43